


Short of Breath

by DoveFanworks



Series: Borrower!Prom [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Borrower!AU, Gen, I'd like to formally apologize to Prompto for this one:), borrower!Prom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 18:16:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19729108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoveFanworks/pseuds/DoveFanworks
Summary: Maybe they just forgot something. Maybe they would just grab it, Specs would get annoyed at Noct for leaving the TV on, and he’d be in the clear. Gods he wasn’t gonna come out of the wall for a week at lea-“TV’s still on, he can’t have gotten far,” a new, impossibly deep voice growled.Oh. Oh dear gods.





	Short of Breath

**Author's Note:**

> I just cannot stop writing stuff for this AU it has utterly charmed me;v;

_ Oh gods oh gods oh gods oh god- _

What were they doing home? They shouldn’t have been home. Every nerve in his body felt alight with a buzzing, sparking energy as he leapt up, the thunder of briskly approaching footsteps filling him both with terror and the realisation that he didn’t even have time to turn the TV off. He tore across the couch like he had a cat swiping at his heels, stumbling more than once on the slightly springy ground and diving behind the nearest throw pillow.

Maybe they just forgot something. Maybe they would just grab it, Specs would get annoyed at Noct for leaving the TV on, and he’d be in the clear. Gods he wasn’t gonna come out of the wall for a week at lea-

“TV’s still on, he can’t have gotten far,” a new, impossibly deep voice growled.

Oh.  _ Oh dear gods _ .

He could have jumped naked into a pile of fresh snow and his organs wouldn’t have grown any more cold.

They knew. They knew he was here. How the hell could they have known?

“Woah yeah look, wait is this one of my fish hooks?”

Fuck. He had left his grappling hook still pinned into the cushions. He was struck very suddenly with the mortifying reality of what that entailed. He had no way to get back down to the ground now.

The drone of the television went silent, turned off by a hand he couldn’t see, and the silence only made the world feel that much more suffocating.

Prompto swallowed shakily, pressing himself back further and further until his back hit the corner where the couch curved down into its ‘L’ shape. He was jammed quite literally into a corner, a stray pillow his only cover.

He was fucked.

“Looks like, quite ingenious.”

He might have been flattered, if his hands weren’t shaking so fiercely.

“You reckon he went under the couch?”

There was a long shuffling sound as he assumed the deep voiced bean got down to peer under the seat. He had never seen the owner of that voice before, and he really didn’t want to now.

“Hello?” Specs called, and he was so obviously trying to sound gentle, like he wasn’t currently hunting him down for sport, “are you still here? We aren’t going to hurt you.”

Prompto narrowly avoided bursting into hysterical laughter, choking on it until it was nothing but a tiny whimper.

“Please come out, we only wish to talk.”

If they would just wander off to some other part of the apartment he could climb back down to the floor and hide beneath the television cabinet until they gave up. Then he had to get the hell out of here. Borrowers couldn’t stay when beans found out about their existence, he might as well have signed his death warrant. The thought made something inside him shrivel up and crumble to dust, knowing he had no one to blame but himself. How stupid he had been to think that they wouldn’t notice. There was a reason borrowers didn’t take things that were likely to be noticed as missing… or use human televisions.

Now he’d have to move again, have to leave the comfortable life he had settled into and brave the immense dangers of the city to find a new home. Maybe he could just move downstairs, in with the old lady and her walls that reeked of herbal incense and scented candles that made his head feel light and fluttery. He somehow doubted he would truly feel safe there, still so close to these beans that knew of his existence.

No, he couldn’t, he  _ couldn’t _ , he had to-

Light flooded his hiding spot and Prompto felt his heart stop.

“Holy fuck I found him!”

“What?!”

_ Noct.  _

Noct loomed above him like some kind of ancient monolith to a mighty god. He wanted to scream. He wanted to vomit. He felt his mouth open but nothing came out.

Noct carelessly tossed the pillow aside, where it hit the end of the couch and tumbled to the floor, the sound and movement making him flinch so hard he was shocked he didn’t break something. Noct stilled over him, eyes widening as he clearly noticed the movement.

“Hey, it’s ok, don’t be scared,” he said, even when trying to be soft his voice rumbled in his ears like thunder, and he dimly realised there was already a ringing in his head from all the yelling, “I’m not gonna hurt you little guy.”

His eyes were blue. Deep blue, like the colour of… he didn’t even know. He had never seen a shade of blue so deep. He had never seen a human’s eyes so close before, and when Noct dropped down into a crouch so that his face was more level with him they became even clearer. 

Prompto was very suddenly aware that his heart hadn’t actually stopped, in fact it was cracking so hard against his chest he wondered how long it would take to shatter his ribs if it continued.

“Wow, you’re tiny,” Noct breathed, slowly sliding one giant hand closer, fingers outstretched. 

Prompto scrambled back like he had been shocked, scrabbling desperately when he found nothing but the solid walls of the couch’s back corner. His breaths came ragged and fast, roiling in his chest and thundering in his bloodstream.

_ Oh gods oh gods oh gods. _

“Noct stop you’re scaring him!”

He flinched again, making a grand attempt at fusing with the grey velvet. He wanted to scream at them. To stop yelling, to stop staring. To just  _ stop _ . But he couldn’t, his throat felt like he had swallowed an entire handful of dust, like he had scrubbed it out with tissue paper, he didn’t even have the breath to scream.

Prompto finally tore his eyes away from Noct’s far larger, far too curious ones when a large, steady movement drew his attention to his right. Specs stepped cautiously around the end of the couch, his sharp, clever gaze riveted on him and Prompto felt his stomach roil, threatening to reacquaint him with his breakfast all over again.

And then he almost did for real, because shadowing him was possibly the biggest human he had ever seen in his life.  _ Oh gods _ .

“Astrals he’s even punier than he looked on the camera,” the giant of a man growled, eyeing him up like he meant to devour him.

_ Camera? But that was- oh gods oh gods, please don’t- gods, please gods _ .

“Gladiolus,” Specs hissed, elbowing him in the gut, “be polite.”

“I wanna know what the hell he’s doing in the Prince’s house first-”

Prompto had no idea what a ‘Prince’ was, or why Specs would even care for niceties towards him, all he knew was that he had to get out of there. Noct turned his head to shoot a glare up at them and Prompto saw his chance. 

Noct had barely enough time to open his mouth before he took off running for the far end of the couch.

The shouting started almost immediately but he didn’t spare a second to listen. His heart hammered between his ears, snapping a staccato beat against his brain. It felt like he was running through honey, like he wasn’t moving at all. He didn’t even know where he was planning to go, fuck but anywhere was better than this, he would even risk a fall down to the hard floor below-

The pillow. The pillow Noct had tossed, he could see it right at the foot of the couch. There was his ticket down without breaking his knees. He veered for the edge, already plotting how he could roll himself down the edge of the cushion and straight under the couch the second he landed. The shouting picked up in volume, pounding in his head like a hammer against a wall. The drop loomed before him. He braced to make a dive for it.

And then he was slammed down into a warm, encompassing darkness.

Prompto gasped, squirming wildly on instinct, completely disoriented as his poor brain struggled to catch up. The world pounded around him, yet was somehow muted by whatever had been thrown over him. The velvet of the couch was soft beneath him, and above him was soft too, but in a different way, like a pillow warmed in the sun for too long. And for one blissful second, he almost tricked himself into believing that.

He writhed and the world tightened around him. Not enough to hurt, barely enough to be noticeable, but enough to tell him exactly what he was trapped under.

“Gladio be careful!”

“Did you get him?!”

“Yeah… I got him.”

“Gladio? Oh gods you didn’t-”

“No! He’s fine, it’s just… I can feel his little heart going…”

There was a beat of silence, Prompto could hear just how fast his heart was going too.

“He’s terrified…”

He was.

The giant (he shuddered) hands covering him relaxed a bit, arching over him so he wasn’t completely pinned beneath them, giving him enough room to push himself on to his elbows. He could just make out the shape of huge, curving digits in the dim gloom, the light that did filter through the gaps of his prison tinted in pinks and golds. He twisted over on to his back, panting harshly as the heat radiating from the human’s skin started to grow stifling, the air turning humid and stale.

He shuffled up on to his hands, flinching away every time he brushed against the giant, Gladio’s, digits. The enormous fingers shifted slightly to compensate, letting more light stream through in short shafts, gleaming over the end of his sewing pin.

“Alright Tiny, you’re gonna have to work with us here-”

Prompto didn’t think twice. In one swift move he yanked the pin from his shirt and sunk it almost halfway into the flesh of the bean’s palm.

“FUCK!”

All at once the encompassing warmth was gone, light flooding his vision once again but he was already scrambling to his feet, blinking around the white spots and throwing himself over the edge of the couch.

Gladio’s howls threatened to crack his skull clean open, only growing worse when the confused shouts of the other two joined him. 

“Little bastard stabbed me!”

The breath was knocked right out of him when he hit the cushion, stunning him like a rat to a firm kick. He wouldn’t have thought landing on a pillow could be so painful, but there were no serious injuries and he could work with that. 

Gasping in air, he shoved himself sideways, rolling down the side towards the dark space beneath the couch. Wading through dust bunnies had never sounded so appealing.

“Shit don’t let him get under there!”

Prompto felt a gust of warm air whistle past him, ripping at his clothes and in the corner of his eye he could make out the vague shape of another enormous hand reaching for him.

He squeaked when soft velvet gave way to icy tiles but he forced himself to scrabble further in, cold burrowing into his skin and dirt clinging to his clothes. He couldn’t stop his damn hands shaking, but he didn’t dare pause to catch his breath until he was as close to the centre as possible.

“He went under.”

“Well shit.”

A long, exhausted sigh that was unmistakably Specs reached his pounding ears before there was more shuffling, the ground vibrating with giant steps. Prompto squeezed his eyes shut, turning his head away and hoping in vain that they would just  _ please leave him alone _ .

His skin tingled all over where he had brushed against those enormous hands, sparking with an energy he couldn’t describe, somewhere between disgust and something almost like hunger. It was doing all sorts of things to his poor, tired mind. 

“Both of you back off,” Specs hissed, his voice mercifully quieter, “I think you’ve traumatised him quite enough.”

“Uh, I’m the one that just got stabbed here-“

Gladio fell silent to what Prompto could only assume was a truly potent glare. He trembled in the dark, whether from fear or from the cold he wasn’t even sure anymore. He had to get up and keep crawling.

“Hello? Are you still there little one?”

His voice was so gentle, yet Prompto still flinched, wriggling away on instinct.

“Wait, please, don’t run again,” Specs pleaded, keeping his voice low and inviting, “I’m so terribly sorry for these two oafs, and I’m certain they are very sorry for their stupid actions as well.”

Prompto didn’t dare turn back, scared that if he made eye contact with the bean no doubt peering at him he would freeze up all over again. He struggled with the desire to just curl into himself, knowing that if he wanted any chance of escape he had to keep moving, had to get to one of his hidden doors, but surrounded on all sides by these relentless humans, he had no idea how he could. 

“Yeah, sorry Gladio kinda squished you there.”

Prompto squeaked in horror, gaze shooting up to find a now very familiar, deep blue eye staring back at him, skittering backwards before freezing all over again when he realised he would just back right into another bean’s face.

“Noct,” Specs admonished, “could you kindly give him some space?”

“You’re doing the same thing,” Noct spat back, before softening his gaze and his voice once again, “it’s ok little guy, come on, we’re not gonna hurt you.”

“Noct, you’re scaring him.”

“No I’m not.”

Prompto whimpered, twisting to crawl back in the direction he had previously run from on top of the couch, back towards the kitchen. The smell of dust and dirt hung heavy in the air, coating his throat and weighing down his lungs with each ragged breath.

“He’s running again!”

“Noct stop! This isn’t working-”

Prompto didn’t pause to listen, too busy desperately raking his mind over his list of doorways, every crack and loose tile he knew of that would get him back into the walls and finally to safety. His gut clenched tighter and tighter as each one was checked off, mostly for his penchant for making doorways that weren’t near the floor. 

The tile in the kitchen, the light in the living room, the hole in the pantry wall, all of them might as well have been as far away from him as the sun. He had no doors left, sure he had a few hidden away in Noct’s bedroom and bathroom respectively, but it wasn’t like he would ever make it that far. 

It was over.

Except… 

He did have one more, on ground level, it was behind the fridge. He hadn’t used it in months though, not since a particularly territorial house spider had set up shop back there. 

But he would gladly take a spider over these three humans.

He could vaguely make out the shadows of his pursuers in the corners of his eyes, circling around the sides of the couch but stopping to the far left side of the couch, all the way down the other end of the ‘L’ shape. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t question it.

Prompto stilled, blinking back into himself when he registered the darkness around him shrinking away, realising he was nearing the edge of the couch. He could see the giant, towering form of the fridge, the narrow space between it and the wall practically dragging his eyes down to exactly where he needed to go to finally be safe. 

It was all just on the other side of the empty, open floor of the kitchen… no pressure.

“This isn’t working,” he dimly heard Specs repeat, too busy calculating just how far he could probably make it before someone snatched him up again, “we need to approach this from a different angle, he’s too frightened to listen right now.”

One good stride from a bean was equivalent to about twenty of his at a sprint and that fucking sucked. There was no way. No way would he make it even half of the way there. He  _ couldn’t _ .

“Iggy, I know it’s shitty and you’re not gonna like it, but we really might just have to trap the little guy until he calms down enough to talk.”

Oh hell fucking no. Prompto didn’t think any further, he simply forced himself to his feet and took off running.

“I mean, do we even know if he can?”

“I can’t- he’s already so scared Gladio, I cannot possibly condone imprisoning him like that-”

Prompto’s lungs burned from all the dust and his knees ached from all the crawling, he could already feel a nice bruise forming across his middle from the tumble off the sofa and now he didn’t even have his pin to defend himself. He felt stripped bare, pushing his legs to move faster as he sprinted across wide open ground, even his dark clothes, so perfect for keeping him hidden in the shadows and the night, were turned against him in the glare of the pure white floors.

“Look, I don’t like it either, but if he gets away we’ll never damn well see him again.”

“Maybe it would be better that way…”

“Specs? The hell do you mean by tha-”

“Guys he’s making a break for it!”

Prompto had never loathed a human bean as much as he did Noct in that moment.

Gods he was over halfway there. It couldn’t end like this. Panting harshly, his heart battering against the entrance of his throat with every step, he poured everything he had left into one last burst of speed. All or nothing, he either made it or he died trying.

The ground shuddered with immense footfalls, a hail of curses and panicked shouting raining down over him. 

“Noct! Toss me that-”

Something huge and bright blue flashed in the corner of his eye but he didn’t dare turn to look, keeping his eyes riveted on the gap between the fridge and the wall.

“I am so, so sorry for this,” he dimly heard Specs say.

He was so close. He was so close.  _ He was there _ .

He slammed hard into a cold metal wall. Wait what?

Prompto dazedly stumbled backwards, blinking as he desperately tried to make sense of what he was seeing. The world had gone dark for what felt like the fiftieth time that day, though there was still more light than there had been under the couch. As he jerkily glanced around he quickly realised why. 

Someone had slapped a giant, hole-peppered bowl over him.  _ No, no, no gods no _ . He threw himself against the shiny steel over and over again, until his shoulder ached and the walls hadn’t budged at all, clearly being held down by a giant hand.

“Woah, you actually got him,” Noct murmured in awe somewhere to his left, making him flinch, “I thought he was gone for sure.”

“Easy there Princess, little guy’s probably one loud noise away from a heart attack by now,” Gladio rumbled on his other side, sending him recoiling right back to where he started, thumping feebly at the wall in a last, desperate attempt to escape. Gladio made a short grunting sound above him.

“Seriously Iggy? A colander?”

“It was all I could think of in the moment,” Specs muttered, before clearing his throat pointedly, adopting that same soft tone from earlier, “please little one, stop doing that, you’re going to hurt yourself, please, stop.”

Prompto felt like he was choking, like something had lodged itself in his chest and inflated, forcing the soul right out of him. He felt his body mindlessly obey, his sweaty palms turning icy where he still had them pressed flat to the metal. They were still shaking, but now he could see that his arms were as well, trembling with a mix of terror and exertion.

This was it. It was all over, wasn't it? He had no more tricks, no more ideas, and no more chances.

He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything other than stand there and shiver, staring at his own distorted, terrified reflection in the murky steel. Maybe it would be quick. He hoped it would be.

“Hey… you alright in there?”

“Of course he bloody isn’t Noct.”

Prompto gasped, realising that he hadn’t taken a breath until his lungs screamed for it. He spun around, pressing his back flat against the wall. His legs finally seemed to register the hopelessness spreading throughout the rest of his body, or perhaps the shaking had just taken too much of a hold, he couldn’t say, he only knew they refused to hold him anymore. He slid to the floor like his bones had turned to jello, staring in wide-eyed horror at the dark, vague forms of the three beans through the scattered holes of the roof.

His breaths echoed strangely under the dome of metal, and he could hear every hitch when he caught glimpses of giant eyes staring back at him.

“Breathe, little one, I’m so sorry we’ve caused you such distress,” Specs murmured, “but I promise, we will not harm you.”

Prompto whimpered, his eyes beginning to sting. 

“Please, can you give us a sign that you can understand us?”

It was too much, it was all too much. He wished he could just disappear. Wished he would wake up from this awful,  _ awful _ nightmare already.

“Do you understand what we’re saying?”

Borrowers didn’t speak to beans.

“Can you talk?” Noct said softly.

_ Borrowers didn’t speak to beans _ .

“Y-yeah,” Prompto answered.


End file.
